Geography

Colombia is bordered on the northwest by Panama,
on the east by Venezuela and Brazil, and on the southwest by Peru and
Ecuador. Through the western half of the country, three Andean ranges run
north and south. The eastern half is a low, jungle-covered plain, drained
by spurs of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, inhabited mostly by isolated
tropical-forest Indian tribes. The fertile plateau and valley of the
eastern range are the most densely populated parts of the country.

Government

Republic.

History

Little is known about the various Indian tribes
who inhabited Colombia before the Spanish arrived. In 1510 Spaniards
founded Darien, the first permanent European settlement on the American
mainland. In 1538 they established the colony of New Granada, the area's
name until 1861.

After a 14-year struggle, during which time
Simón Bolívar's Venezuelan troops won the battle of
Boyacá in Colombia on Aug. 7, 1819, independence was attained in
1824. Bolívar united Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and Ecuador in
the Republic of Greater Colombia (1819–1830), but he lost Venezuela
and Ecuador to separatists. Two political parties dominated the region:
the Conservatives believed in a strong central government and a powerful
church; the Liberals believed in a decentralized government, strong
regional power, and a less influential role for the church. Bolívar
was himself a Conservative, while his vice president, Francisco de Paula
Santander, was the founder of the Liberal Party.

Santander served as president between 1832 and
1836, a period of relative stability, but by 1840 civil war had erupted. Other
periods of Liberal dominance (1849–1857 and 1861–1880), which
sought to disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, were marked by
insurrection. Nine different governments followed, each rewriting the
constitution. In 1861, the country was called the United States of New
Granada; in 1863 it became the United States of Colombia; and in 1885, it
was named the Republic of Colombia.

In 1899, a brutal civil war broke out, the War of
a Thousand Days, that lasted until 1902. The following year, Colombia lost
its claims to Panama because it refused to ratify the lease to the United States of
the Canal Zone. Panama declared its independence in 1903.